Sunday, April 12, 2009

Dangerously Yours (OTRR Certified)

.Dangerously Yours was a half hour show sponsored by Vicks. There were sixteen episodes broadcast in 1944, with eleven of them available to collectors today. Each episode seemed to star Victor Jory as the leading man, and concentrated heavily on romance, with much airtime being devoted to lovers murmuring sweet nothings at each other, and the action and adventure being relegated to backdrop status. At the end of each episode, the announcer would give a very brief teaser for the following week's show.

Toward the end of 1944, the series changed its title and became known as Vicks Matinee Theater. A further twenty five episodes were broadcast, with some of them being repeats of episodes broadcast earlier in the year. Of these twenty five, twenty two of them are known to be in existence.

Matinee Theater represented a serious attempt by CBS to provide quality dramatic programming for its Sunday afternoon listeners. A continuation of the series Dangerously Yours, it was renamed Matinee Theater with a view towards presenting "a greater range of stories". That broader scope was able to accommodate such episodes as "Beautiful Dreamer" (the Stephen Foster story) and "The Love Story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning".

Victor Jory and several different female stars paired to bring classics like "Wuthering Heights", "Jane Eyre", and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" to the audience, as well as a number of more contemporary works. The first of these thirty-minute broadcasts aired October 22, 1944 and the final one on April 8, 1945. The Vick Chemical Company sponsored throughout.